Sean Holden & Aiya Benaso / April 5, 2019

Creating a buzz in the community

Essaunce is responding to the need to support bees and other pollinators in B.C. With the help of BeeBC funding, she is planning to generate educational initiatives in her community and plant beneficial plants to help pollinators thrive.

“The idea comes from the need for a community space, somewhere that’s educational for parents to take their kids.”

With the help of volunteers she is going to convert an old cottonwood plantation on the MacInnes Farms it into a pollinator conservation area.

The site will include space for nesting grounds and beneficial flora focusing on bloom times that are sparse. The work of converting the farm will be volunteer led with support from the Langley Environmental Partners Society.

This plot of farmland on 248th & 72nd in Langley will be turned into a pollinator conservation area.
( Aiya Benaso / BCIT News )

Bee Sustainability

Beekeeping: ensuring our food security

While beekeeping is a relatively small industry, it plays a significant role within B.C’s environment and agricultural sector. It’s essential, not just for honey and other hive products such as bees wax, but more importantly for the pollination services provided by bees.

In fact many studies say that 1/3 of all the food you eat was produced with the help of bees. The B.C. Government reports that honeybees have contributed nearly $3.8 million to the B.C. economy for 2018.

Their pollination activities directly support the production of many fruits, nuts and vegetable crops. The province indicates that the health of honey bees and native bees have been declining over the past decade, which in turn jeopardizes our food security.

Crops and flowering plants cannot live and reproduce without the help of bees and pollinators
( pixabay )

Cassie Gibeau has been working with bees for 3 years since she took over her family’s business
( Aiya Benaso / BCIT News )

Educational initiatives

Cassie Gibeau, co-owner of the Honey Bee Centre in Surrey, runs educational outreach programs. She says people need to be taught a healthy understanding of bees throughout environmental stewardship.

“We try to spark interest and show people bees are not as scary as they may have originally thought.”

Honey bees are only 1 of 900 species of bees in North America, and they are not indigenous to our area. They are imported, so they need to be maintained. Gibeau says honey bees can be managed, and just like anything that is farmed there are good seasons and bad seasons.

“Taking care of bees is taking care of food security.”

Gibeau says her colonies can pollinate about 3 crops depending on the timing of the season.

Her bee pollinating cycle starts in foster yards for the winter where her bees rest, then in the spring they are brought to berry crops throughout B.C (blueberry, raspberry, cranberry and blackberry) then they travel to Alberta where they pollinate crops of clover, canola and alfalfa. Then they come back home to B.C. and their cycle starts again.

Farmer

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Melanie MacInnes, MacInnes Farms & Be-Ingredients

MacInnes farms has a sister corporation and new farming enterprise Be-Ingredients which is currently producing honey, hops, hazelnuts, and barley. The MacInnes family has been farming in Langley for over 40 years.

Melanie MacInnes with Be-Ingredients and MacInnes Farms says the conservation of pollinators is important for her livelihood, and to help realign people’s perspectives of natural beauty and living forests.

“It provides an alternative view on farming that can be applied in a large scale and in ones own backyard.”

How much does the pollination of bees affects your livelihood as a farmer?

“We farm in a permaculture style and depend on biodiversity to work together in a symbiotic nature. The bees and pollinators are a huge part in the success of our farm and we value them as our top priority. The bees and pollinators benefit from the first pollen of our hazelnut trees and we benefit by them pollinating our apple trees and market garden vegetables.”

What will it look like if we don’t take action to save native bees/pollinators?

“Native bees and pollinators are everything to our food system. Imagine a world with no apples or fruit and many of our vegetables. And then the consequences for the animals relying on these food sources. It would be devastating.”

Do you feel that struggling bee populations is really an epidemic or is it manageable?

“I’m an optimist and believe we need to start seeing the intrinsic value in pollinators to our human survival. We need to value those dandelions in our lawns and reframe how we see beauty in nature.”

Urban Beekeeper

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Sarah Common, Hives for Humanity

Hives for Humanity is a non-profit organization which started in Vancouver’s downtown east side. They manage over 200 hives in communities throughout Vancouver and Delta, through partnership and collaboration, connecting all kinds of people and pollinators to an inclusive and supportive community.

Sarah Commons with Hives for Humanity, says helping bees in Vancouver gives bees and people opportunities not afforded in rural areas.

“In rural areas bees are used for production and we’re able to remove some of those stressors, they stay in one garden, their not moved around, it’s more organic for the bees.”

Growing concerns for a shrinking population

Our bees are under threat

Bees are in trouble nationally and globally. Both managed honeybees and wild bee species are facing challenges, including extensive use of pesticides, diseases, pests, loss of diverse forage and climate change.

Pesticides

Pesticides are spreading widely in and around agricultural systems, and beekeepers themselves use pesticides and antibiotics in colonies to prevent or treat diseases and pests. Many pesticides are directly toxic, but more threatening accumulation of low levels of diverse pesticides in honeycomb, continually contaminating honeybees and resulting in diminished ability to orient in flight, reduced capacity of immune systems to counter diseases and decreased ability to detoxify pesticides.

Lack of nutrients

Nutritional deficiencies are caused by loss of diverse forage for bees. Urbanization and extensive use of highly effective herbicides on farms, roadways and railroad rights of way have reduced the wildflowers and pollinator friendly plants that bees depend on, creating nutritional deserts for both honeybees and wild bees.

Diseases and pests

Diseases and pests for Canadian honeybees have increased dramatically in recent decades due to the accidental introduction of mites from overseas. These mites feed on bees and transmit viruses, and in combination with fungal and bacterial diseases are exposing honeybees to many more health challenges.

Climate

Climate change is a wild card in the future of beekeeping and crop production. The impacts can be difficult to guess the magnitude and direction. The ranges of wild bee species might also shift with climate change, but the directions of wild bee distribution and its overall impact so far are speculative.

This combination of factors is overwhelming the resilience of bees and creating high honeybee colony losses and diminished populations of wild bees.

Hive heists

Aside from natural predators and climate change, honey and bee theft in B.C. is just one more thing beekeepers have to worry about. Carolyn Essaunce says $4,000 of honey and three colonies were stolen from her just last year.

“It was gutting, it’s like any theft, it’s violating. You work so hard, it’s blood sweat and tears all season. And to have that taken from you, it hits your core.”

Essaunce says the thefts most likely come from a place of desperation. She says farmers or beekeepers have colonies that collapse and suddenly die off but they still have signed contracts that they have to produce for.

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Most beekeepers brand their colonies.

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Each one of these boxes acts as a beehive, inside lives a colony that has thousands of bees.

Are wasps really to blame?

The cousin of the honeybee usually gets a bad rap. Wasps have been in the news recently for killing mass amounts of bees, but that’s a bit of a misconception.

Cassie Gibeau says wasps aren’t responsible for bee die offs.

“Wasps will only attack already sick and dying colonies, it’s just the circle of life and Mother Nature’s way of recycling.”

Gibeau says this year’s season in particular saw weakened honeybee colonies due to a tough winter and strong healthy wasps, which in turn saw a rise in so called “wasp attacks” on hives.

“As long as bees are healthy, they can win against wasps.”

Honey bees aren’t the only pollinators in our neighborhoods. Along with wasps, birds, moths and many more species, there are tons of little workers pollinating agriculture and forage. Here is a quick list of some other types of bees that can often be misidentified.

Plan Bee

Planting for pollinators

Carolyn Essaunce says part of her plan to create a pollinator conservation area begins with planting the right plants.

“Anyone with a yard or a balcony can plant a pollinator friendly flower.”

Essaunce says it’s best to choose plants that produce pollen throughout the year and are drought resistant. Especially in the hotter months when water is low, the first thing plants do is stop producing pollen.

The Food For Bees initiative promotes the planting of bee forage, to support wild pollinator populations. Studies have shown that an abundance and diversity of nectar and pollen bearing plants enhance pollinator populations which supports greater biodiversity and a healthier sustainable environment.

Essaunce expects that after a few years of putting her plan into effect, many areas will show increases in pollinator abundance and species diversity.